Why I have given up on vacuum refilling.

[on30trainman]

Side note: I was browsing youtube for videos on chip resetting and found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJR7wDF_H_o&feature=related

Interestingly enough they are using the German method!

At the end of the above referenced video there is also a selection for another video that shows refilling a CLI-8 cartridge with the top fill method - which is what I use and am happy with. Although I seal the top hole with a 3/8" #8-32 nylon machine screw I get at Home Depot.

Steve W.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Here are the two videos I promised in post #29 and itemized in post #38.

The first shows how to poke the hole with an awl and then use an Inktec syringe to fill a dry Canon BCI-6 cartridge that has never been filled before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ghw_XoBmCo

The second shows how to refill the same cartridge after it has been used to the point where the printer reports it as low (yellow warning) which means the reservoir is empty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO51ogjDamk

 

[Nifty]

Wow, great job ghwellsjr!!! Very clear and to the point. Speaking of which, I sure hope people are VERY careful when using such a sharp object with so much pressure. I can see reports coming into the forum from people without such steady hands who slip and end up with a refill hole (or drain hole) in their hand.

I'm even more excited now to test out this process. I must go get my children to print a bunch of color pictures so I can do some refilling!!!

 

[Nifty]

Hahaha... I was watching the videos again and my wife came by and said, Id probably stab myself.

ghwellsjr, a few questions:

1) I noticed in your first video you were injecting ink as you withdrew the needle to get ink into the dry sponge. If the cart was simply refilled in the manner you did in the second video and then left right-side-up would ink have naturally wicked into the sponge properly?

2) In your second video you refilled the reservoir to the point where ink was to the top and even being forced into the sponge. Usually I'd be worried about overfilling with that much ink, but since your sponge was still unsaturated I guess that probably wasn't an issue. Had the sponge been saturated would you have stopped before reaching the top (bottom) of the reservoir with ink?

Cheers and great work!

 

[pharmacist]

Hi Rob,

actually the amount of ink to be injected I already explained minutely on my refill guide for the CLI-221/5521/821 cartridges. One should let the sponge passively suck as much ink as it needs and refill again very slowly towards the end to prevent displacement of ink from the sponge through the breathing hole.

 

[stratman]

ghwellsjr:

Good to see more videos and methods. But have to say, if I were making a "chunnel" with an awl I would also be sealing the hole!

I use a push pin which results in a hole just snug enough for the needle.



Nifty-Stuff.com:

I also inject a small quantity of ink along the sponge as I withdrawl the needle. I started doing this to make sure the sponge/ink exit port was "primed" when using purged and totally DRY sponge cartridges. Now I do it most times I refill (caveat listed below).

The sponge will "wick" ink from the spongeless side until its equilibrium is reached regardless of method used.

Your assumption in your question #2 is correct. If the sponge has "enough" ink in it, whatever that may mean to you, then squirting ink in the sponged chamber increases the risks of ink loss at the ink exit port. Other causes of leaking ink include injecting too fast, injecting too much ink overall, injecting too much ink in the spongeless side, like ghwellsjr did in his first video but when the sponge has plenty of ink in it already, regardless of how much ink is in the spongeless side. I'll probably find more as I continue to refill.

Oh, yeah, just remembered, a filled cartridge will leak if you squeeze the bejeebers out if it too.

The intermediate situation is the creation of bubbles or a well of ink in the ink injection port (above the ciylindrical sponge contained within) while you have the cartridge turned upside down while refilling. Stopping refilling and allowing the bubbles/fluid to soak back into the sponge resolves the issue (unless you have really over-filled the cartridge, then it will leak when turned right-side up until equilibrium is established inside the cartridge). If you can create some negative pressure via the needle, the issue(s) can generally be resolved as well.

There is a finese about this method that you will understand once you do it a few times. Nothing difficult, just learning the peculiarities of the Durchstich method.

 

[pharmacist]

I think stratman is right about the awl being pushed too far into the cartridge. Just stop when you get through the wall. That's why using an electric drill is not be recommended: the chances are very high the sponge material is actually wrapped around the drill rendering the cartridge completely useless. I think you can actually use a piece of ordinary transparant scotch tape to seal the hole.

 

[Nifty]

Well, after purging and cleaning a few cartridges I decided to give this a go on the Canon carts (not refilling, but drilling and getting the needle to the prism). I followed ghwellsjr's video and it worked like a charm. I'm glad I had the video as reference so I could really see the process of going under the main sponge and not through it. Almost too easy.

I've currently got an ugly mix of carts, OEM and non-OEM sitting in my printer. Whichever ones empty next I'll give this process a go. If they are non-OEM I'll probably need to go through the sponge above the exit port sponge.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I sure hope people are VERY careful when using such a sharp object with so much pressure. I can see reports coming into the forum from people without such steady hands who slip and end up with a refill hole (or drain hole) in their hand.

I don't normally poke the hole the way I did it in the video. That was just to make it clearer without having to do video editing. Normally, I lay the cartridge on the edge of a counter and press firmly on it while poking the hole horizontally.

 

[ghwellsjr]

1) I noticed in your first video you were injecting ink as you withdrew the needle to get ink into the dry sponge. If the cart was simply refilled in the manner you did in the second video and then left right-side-up would ink have naturally wicked into the sponge properly?

Yes it would but it would take a while.

It's different than when you refill from the top of the reservoir because in that case, the ink will rapidly exit the hole at the bottom of the partition between the two chambers and it instantly saturates the sponge at whatever level it finally reaches in the reservoir and you have to take extra precautions to prevent it from oversaturating (see post #4).

With GRM, you have the opposite situation. You can either wait for the sponge to soak up what ever amount of ink it wants, or you can do what I did and help it along. Notice how I controlled the amount of ink so that it saturated the bottom sponge but left the upper sponge dry. This is the ideal situation because the bottom sponge is designed to flow ink and the upper sponge is designed to flow air. This Canon two-sponge design is important for the proper flow of ink from the reservoir through the bottom sponge to the outlet port while simultaneously allowing the flow of air from the air vent through the upper sponge, along the groves that go half way up the partition between the two chambers and down into the reservoir to replace the ink that is drawn out.

2) In your second video you refilled the reservoir to the point where ink was to the top and even being forced into the sponge. Usually I'd be worried about overfilling with that much ink, but since your sponge was still unsaturated I guess that probably wasn't an issue. Had the sponge been saturated would you have stopped before reaching the top (bottom) of the reservoir with ink?

In the second video, the bottom sponge was saturated. It was actually the same cartridge that I used in the first video, I just did a reverse GRM to suck the ink out of the reservoir to simulate a cartridge that had just given a low ink (yellow) warning. I wasn't trying to force any ink into the sponge and I could have stopped a little earlier but it won't hurt if a little ink flows into the sponge.

What I'm recommending is that people use the Inktec syringes to refill their cartridges as soon as one of them registers low and to not have any spares. There is no pouring of ink or sucking of ink into a syringe and no cleanup except for wiping off the needle. If it isn't real quick and easy, I don't think people are likely to use this method. I believe that if the bottom sponge is never allowed to get dry, then the cartridges will last a lot longer before requiring a purge.